


Riptide

by stardropdream



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Breathplay, Masturbation, Multi, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 12:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2269509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin, waiting beside the lake, does not always desire in the waiting years. There are times when the longing becomes too much, when it stutters out of him and his breath comes short and he remembers, however briefly, what it is like to be alive, to live and to desire and to act.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Riptide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jlarinda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jlarinda/gifts).



> Written for the prompt "underwater" in possibly the most depressing means I could envision. Also incorporates a request for Merlin getting off at the edge of the lake thinking of Arthur, soooo. This is a happy fic, totally..... 
> 
> Should be noted that, despite the pairings listed, Merlin is the only one in this fic to actually make an appearance. Freya and Arthur are only ever implied.

There are times. There are times when the longing becomes too much, when it stutters out of him and his breath comes short and he remembers, however briefly, what it is like to be alive, to live and to desire and to act. His entire life has dissolved into a stillness, and even the slightest flutter of movement disrupts the deep, even breathing of the earth and the sky and himself. His bones ache. 

The water is cold and his breath comes short and he blinks up at the sky, hazed beneath his tears or beneath the stilted air that hangs between him and Avalon and he thinks, he thinks, if only he were stronger, if only he’d listened more, learned more, he could breech that divide, he could find him. 

His hands move to the looseness of his breeches – made looser after so long without eating properly, without sleeping properly, without living properly – and he shimmies it down off his hips. His hands fall to his sides, forgotten, and he watches the sky, then slowly sits up enough to look out at the water – at once Freya and at once Arthur and at once nothing at all but a bitter, crushing reminder of everything he has lost. He wants to memorize every little detail of the water, as if it is unchanging in its ever-changing nature, watching it play out before him, resolved that he will imagine no more, he will simply remember – remember, finally, when he is able to step away from this lake, step away for a while and remember to breathe again, remember to move without the rust leaking into his bones. 

His chin raised, his shoulders back, he slowly pulls himself into a sitting position, and a hand falls into his lap, touches at the soft curve of his cock, not yet hard. He looks out at the water, slouches a little, eyes drawn inexorably towards the water, towards the distant island in its mist. The waterline laps at his ankles and he shifts, stretching his legs out, shifts down until his legs are submerged in the water up to his knees. Inch by inch, the water claims him, the legs of his breeches clinging to his legs, atrophied from lack of movement, lack of food, lack of anything of substance. The tears sting his eyes for thoughts of distant times, a world so far away from him now, in which he ran up and down flights of stairs to answer the distant shouting call from his prince and king. 

He shifts forward, stroking his cock as it plumps up a little in his hand, and he moves to his knees until he is submerged up to his waist in the water, the fraying ends of his tunic billowing in the water, shivering from the cold and yet feeling enveloped by it – feeling as if Freya is there with him again, feeling as if he can just hear the distant chords of Arthur’s laughter lapping at the water, laughing at his foolish servant, laughing at his foolish friend. 

The lake gradually stills, the ripples sending out at the movement of his legs eventually fading away into nothing. The tears prickle at his eyes and he blinks them away and just _looks_ , just listens. The air around him feels suddenly too close and too tense, and the water laps at his hips, at the slow curve of his cock and the twitch of his fingers, droplets falling and ripples shifting away from him. The waterline caresses at his hips and for half a second he doesn’t feel quite as alone as he did before, but it is still a painful squeeze of his heart and his need is pulsing inside of him, streaming up to the surface, and he longs to duck forward, to dive down deep, to lose himself in the depths of the lake of Avalon and never remerge, to simply become one with the two that he’s lost most – to dissolve into water, to evaporate into mist. Maybe, then, the longing would ebb away. 

He closes his eyes to the tears, envisions all that he’s lost – pictures how sweetly Freya once kissed him, how overwhelmed he’d been then. Envisions how Arthur would kiss – commandingly, decidedly, kissing like a leader, giving himself away piece by piece. 

The water feels like a touch now, reverent and wet, as if fingers running down along him, his muscles tightening and stiffening, his chest heaving, the soft, delicate touch of a forefinger, the pads of fingers digging against the skin trapped beneath the wet fabric. 

He looks out over the water, over the distant, misty island forever from his reach – forever waiting. 

And he submerges himself entirely into the water. His lungs will with it and he can’t breathe for the feeling of the water around him, squeezing around him, pressuring up against his body, and he strokes himself, his entire body shivering and ignores the way the momentary fear seizes him, as if he is not more than capable of breaking the surface again. He imagines Arthur’s hands, strong, callused, powerful, holding him down by his neck. He imagines Freya’s hands on the small of his back, supporting him, keeping him floating beneath the water’s surface – comfort and fleeting, both of them holding him and he draws comfort from it, his skin clammy and chilled under the water. 

He instinctively starts to panic when his lungs twist inside of him, begging for air, and he resists it long enough to fold his knees, tilts his head, feels the water against his ears, in his nostrils, in his mouth. His hand slicks through the water, squeezing around himself, and it is a good thing he is beneath the water, a good thing that his tears become part of Freya. 

His loose-fitting clothes billow away from him when he actually dares to open his eyes. The water has always been murky in the past, but today it feels clear, a dappled, distorted blue that is at once comforting and painful in its distance. Air bubbles involuntarily depart his mouth when he opens it around a small gasp of pleasure elicited by a small twist of his wrist around the base of his cock. 

But soon his chest is tight and he has to break the surface, gasping for air, his hand falling away from his cock and reaching to steady himself against the soft bottom of the lake. It takes a full few seconds for him to relax enough to actually appreciate the air in his lungs. He shivers as the air hits his wet skin, the droplets sliding down his face, dripping from his hair, his wet clothes clinging to him like a second skin. 

He feels dizzy with arousal, though, which is the first time in so long that he’s felt anything other than that bitter, hollow sadness of waiting – and it twists inside him still, warping with that desire, but for now, all Merlin can do is focus on it, focus on that tether that makes him feel, for once in years, that he is human again, capable of happiness as well as sadness. 

He envisions Arthur returning, pulling himself from beneath the water, wet and cloak clinging to him, hair in his eyes, and smiling – Merlin cries out for the want of it, for how desperately he wants it, for how desperately he would fling himself to Arthur, hold tight to him, pulling him down into the shallows of the lake and just let Arthur press down against him, reminding himself that he’s real, reminding himself that he’s _back_ and his. 

And Merlin stifles a small cry and submerges himself back into the water, hand returning to his cock, sliding up and down steadily, the rasp of his thumb over the head that makes Merlin buck his hips, envisioning that it’s Arthur’s hand upon him, envisioning that it’s Freya’s soft smiling lips against his as his mouth fills with water. The friction is perfect, less slippery than oil but much better than touching himself dry, and he moves in a slow, maddening pace that he’s sure would drive Arthur to impatience, were he to ever do such a pace for him. And he doesn’t want to come up for air. 

He sobs into the water, air bubbles escaping his mouth, and he doesn’t _want_ to come up for air, wants to choke on it all, wants to die and become part of both of them, both somewhere too far beyond his reach, wants to feel Freya’s hands in his hair, cradling his head, wants to feel Arthur’s hands on his hips, holding him down. Wants to feel. 

And in only a few more strokes, he’s gasping out and his mouth is filling with water and he’s coming, jerking his hips up hard and his cock sliding into his hand and he forgets himself entirely, it’s been so long, forgets not to gasp, forgets not to suck in water through the blue, chokes and sputters and has to break the surface, gasping out for air, gulping down the air, coughing up the lake water, his entire body shuddering through his aftershocks. 

He coughs, his voice feeling rough and graveled, and he sobs out, twisting into himself and ducking his head until his forehead touches the water, sobbing for the sudden, choking loss of being alone, of being cold, of being anything but a man who is waiting.


End file.
